Half a million Qatar-run fake accounts target Bahrain

A Qatari propaganda group which handles over half a million fake social media accounts posts 10 pictures online every 5 minutes in efforts to defame Bahrain, it was learnt.

Thousands of fake social media accounts are being used by the Qatari regime every day to defame Bahrain, this includes half a million Facebook accounts, 31,000 Twitter accounts, and 36,000 Instagram accounts.

This was revealed by the think tank ‘The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies’, which studies Middle East affairs. The organisation stated that after a comprehensive study, the accounts were confirmed to be fake created by Qatar. According to the research, a systematic defamation campaign is being carried out with Bahrain being the prime target.

The accounts posts fake news on a regular basis to hurt Bahrain’s social unity as well as to harm the Kingdom’s relations with Saudi Arabia, the research revealed.

He said that the accounts shared images created by Qatar which were designed to create a distorted negative view of Bahrain, especially among those in the West as well as to influence public opinion of those in Bahrain and in regional countries.

“Of the 31,000 fake Twitter accounts created, 21,000 accounts exclusively target Bahrain and Saudi Arabia while the rest of the 10,000 accounts also target Bahrain but not exclusively.” he said.

“They translated this [the posts] into English so that they can reach more people. They even translated it to Chinese in some cases! They know where they are targeting,” he said.

Many of the people in the photos of these fake accounts may look Bahrainis but these people do not exist, the photos are manipulated, he said.

“Some of the names they use are real Bahraini names while other accounts use a generic name such as “Bahrain nation” or “Bahrain Youth”. He said that 9,000 new accounts have been created to disrupt the upcoming Bahraini parliamentary elections.

Recently, the Ministry of Interior has also uncovered online hatred campaigns initiated by Qatar to jeopardise Bahrain’s security.

Qatar was behind a handful of controversial cases that were stirred up in Bahrain through the different social platforms during the past few weeks, the MoI stated earlier.